Brett Johnson [00:00:01]:
We are looking forward our way. Hi, this is Brett. We have a very special program today. Eric Gnezda is an award winning singer songwriter based here in central Ohio. Eric is also the creator and host of Songs at The Center, a TV series which airs over 400 PBS stations across the United States. Eric pens and performs a wide range of songs, both serious and humorous, from inspirational anthems and love songs that touch the heart and soul to country tearjerkers and, and comedic satirical numbers. Let's welcome Eric Gnezda. Thanks for joining us.
Eric Gnezda [00:00:34]:
It's wonderful to be here. I'm looking forward to our way. It's. I'm really excited and very appreciative of the invitation.
Brett Johnson [00:00:42]:
Well, we appreciate you showing up in the episode too. Seriously.
Carol Ventresca [00:00:45]:
Yeah, absolutely. I do have to give a shout out to our mutual friend Tim Harmon, who.
Eric Gnezda [00:00:50]:
Hi, Tim.
Carol Ventresca [00:00:53]:
Exactly. Yeah, we, we, we met through Tim and he sort of nudged us into this and, and we're so excited and glad. Thank you. Because I know your, your schedule is a little crazy and, and we, we appreciate your time.
Brett Johnson [00:01:07]:
Well, especially when Tim brings up, it's like, well, you should talk to him. It's like, oh, he isn't going to want to be on our little old podcast, you know, that sort of thing.
Carol Ventresca [00:01:13]:
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, yeah, no, Tim, Tim is a joiner. He, he gets people together, so. And does a good job at it.
Eric Gnezda [00:01:21]:
Yeah, well, he works with us too and he's a dynamic guy and we're thrilled that he's on our team as well.
Carol Ventresca [00:01:26]:
Yeah, he's been telling me about this for a long time and it wasn't until he invited me to come to one of the programs that I kind of got what he was talking about. So it's really nice. So we're going to, we have for our audience, we're going to have lots of information about the program today and we will also have information on our website when the podcast is posted. So you'll get even more information about Eric and the program. So thank you again for joining us today. We want to hear more about this incredible program. However, first I'd really like to hear more about you. During your career, you've had many different roles utilizing your writing and communications talents and working in newspapers, local TV and radio.
Carol Ventresca [00:02:09]:
And you also taught at the college level, even though we did went to rival schools and you've had your own communications firm for years. So Eric, tell us more about your background and your previous experiences. How did this all pivot to this role you have now?
Eric Gnezda [00:02:27]:
Well, that's a good Question. I go back to my senior year in college when there were about three things that I wanted to do with my life. And of course none of them were conventional. I wanted to be a TV producer, I wanted to be a newspaper columnist, and I wanted to be a recording artist.
Brett Johnson [00:02:46]:
And that's pre Internet, so now Internet, that's totally possible.
Eric Gnezda [00:02:51]:
Exactly. So I just, I just took every opportunity I could at the start, whether it would pay or not. And I to do all that. And I was a songwriter from the time I was 16 or 17. I'd record songs whenever I could. I also took a job, I did not get paid for it, but every Friday I'd give a commentary on WOSU radio and that got me in radio. And then, then I, that, that transitioned into commercial radio with WWNCI and then WTVN. And the attention I got from that got me an invitation from the editor of the Columbus Dispatch to write a column for them, which led to me being on PM Magazine.
Eric Gnezda [00:03:45]:
So by the time I was 27, I was doing all these things and I'm thinking, I thought this business was supposed to be hard. But then, you know, when I, I was doing mostly comedy work then and about the time I turned 30, I, I wasn't having much fun. And so I started doing kind of a self excavation of my life and discovered some things that, you know, as a lot of people when they hit 30 do, you start looking at your life. And so I took six months off, just watched old movies and what started emerging was a more serious side to me. And I'll never forget I had written a song about my father who was an Ms. Patient. He was diagnosed with Ms. When I was three days old and he was a very funny guy.
Eric Gnezda [00:04:46]:
But I wrote a song about him and a friend of mine heard it and he goes, you've got to do that at your gig this weekend. It was for the Ohio Speakers Forum. And I said, I can't do, I'm a funny guy. I can't just do something serious like that. They're not going to know. The audience isn't going to know how to take it. And he asked me a very important question. Then he said, he said, is the funny Eric Nesda real? And I said, yes.
Eric Gnezda [00:05:14]:
He says, is the serious Eric Nesda real? I said, yeah. He said, as long as you're being yourself in front of an audience, they will accept you. I did. The song was incredibly well received and that put me on the path that I followed ever since then. And that's converging of the convergence of humorous music and serious music. And whether it's. Whether I'm writing a book or writing songs or something, I became comfortable with those two elements of myself. And so everything that's come from that has been an extension of being comfortable with being authentic.
Eric Gnezda [00:06:03]:
And whether it's writing or producing a show or writing a song, it all comes from the same creative base. And I've been very fortunate. I've also made immense sacrifices, but it's worked together so far.
Carol Ventresca [00:06:25]:
One of the things you just said, and I think it's from my background working with college students. Your background teaching at the college level, you always took opportunities and salary was not the issue. This reminds me, we're taping this just after Tom Yamas took over NBC Nightly News and he's been interviewed a ton of times over the past month. One of the things he said was he kept putting his hand up when he was a young man, he kept putting his hand up doing things. And that is such an important lesson that I think our young folks today don't understand the end product is not going to happen if you don't get all those different experiences.
Eric Gnezda [00:07:12]:
Yeah. And the other thing is you never know what you're learning at a given time. And I'll give you an example of this. When I was in college, I had about a six month intern at channel internship at channel 10. I was the first intern they ever had. And they stuck me in different departments for a couple weeks and it was boring sometimes. But I learned the most important lesson I could have learned about performing in television. And that is that for every person who's on stage or on the air, there are dozens, scores of people behind the scenes doing work so that they can look good.
Eric Gnezda [00:07:58]:
And how important it is to treat each of those people well and because your existence depends upon them.
Carol Ventresca [00:08:08]:
Absolutely. And those are lessons that, as you said, I. I love what you just said. You don't know. You don't even realize you're learning that lesson while it's happening.
Eric Gnezda [00:08:18]:
Right. It's kind of like the Karate Kid, you know, the movie, you know, he's making him wash his car, but he's really teaching him something deeper than that.
Carol Ventresca [00:08:26]:
Yes.
Eric Gnezda [00:08:27]:
And you have to be open to those experiences.
Carol Ventresca [00:08:30]:
Right? Right.
Brett Johnson [00:08:31]:
Yeah. Well, storytelling through music has often been at the core of what you've accomplished. What inspired you to pursue this love of stories through music? Was it a specific event or experience? And also have these various positions guided you on this path for so many years? How has it.
Eric Gnezda [00:08:50]:
Well, there was never One person or one instance, it kind of evolved. But I will say that there's such a thing in music as a story song. It's a genre. And I didn't really consider that a strength of mine. And when I started going to Nashville and just watching the great songwriters write and I studied what they did, I realized that for the most part, they're telling stories and they have 16 lines to do it. And I think it was that influence that got me doing that in my songs. And one of the biggest compliments I got was from a fellow Ohio songwriter who said that my songs were like Norman Rockwell paintings, that they have a. You can see what you're writing about.
Eric Gnezda [00:09:56]:
But that just kind of evolved because when I was in my 20s, I didn't think I was a storyteller at all in my songs.
Carol Ventresca [00:10:04]:
Do you think that I've always thought. I've always assumed or understood country music to be more storytelling than other genres. Do you think that would have happened if you had been someplace other than Nashville?
Eric Gnezda [00:10:17]:
Well, it might have. It might have. And I think the reason that Nashville had such an effect on me is simply because of geography. It's six hours away, as opposed to going to LA or New York or something. But there's a line in a Bellamy Brothers song called the Old Hippie, which was out in the 80s, and they say in that line in that song, he gets off on country music because disco left him cold. And I really identified with that because Joni Mitchell and Jackson Brown and James Taylor and all these people were popular in the 70s, and they wrote music that I absolutely loved. And some of their lyrics are stories and some of them are abstract. But when disco came in, there was nowhere for a listener like me to go.
Eric Gnezda [00:11:14]:
There just wasn't. And so country music became a little more appealing to me then I never was. But country music also expanded then. It wasn't. It didn't have that. The same kind of basic sound that it used to, and it started expanding. So that's where the lyrical content turned out to be, was country music. So that's probably another reason, but I don't consider myself a country music writer.
Brett Johnson [00:11:48]:
Gotcha.
Eric Gnezda [00:11:49]:
I've learned from Nashville and those kinds of things, but I don't know that my music would appeal to country songwriters.
Brett Johnson [00:11:57]:
Yeah. And I think that the creative artists don't allow themselves, from my point of view, don't allow themselves to be pigeonholed in a certain genre, which is frustrating to get airplay or. The Internet's changed that, though, now. But it's that those that kind of break the mold and they're actually. They may be 10 years ahead of themselves or anybody else. It seems that. And I think it's encouraging that it can happen.
Eric Gnezda [00:12:26]:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
Carol Ventresca [00:12:29]:
I think. And I'm not going to give the Internet that much credit, but I've enjoyed how music has expanded over our lifetime. When we were growing up in the 60s and 70s, at least in the 50s and 60s, it was pretty. There were narrow, very narrow paths. It was sort of like what our parents liked and the Beatles and all that is out there now there. I only listen to one reality show. I don't listen to it all the time on tv, and it's one of the singing. And I love the artists who are mentoring young folks because it's expanded my knowledge of music because I'm not from a background where I sit and listen to music all the time.
Carol Ventresca [00:13:20]:
And so it's really given me a lot more to listen to and to appreciate. And going to Nashville opened all of that up for you, which is wonderful. Wonderful. So one of the things that I noticed in the work that you have put into your work website is that you call music a healing art. Now, I immediately thought of, like, therapy, but I don't think that's necessarily where you're going with that notion. Can you explain that concept to us? Give us, you know, how does. And how does that work into your own own art music work?
Eric Gnezda [00:13:58]:
Well, one of the things that. That I've discovered on my TV show is that most songwriters consider music a healing art. Now, we have different definitions of how we use it to heal, how it heals us. For me, though, it's a whole different direction in that, as I said. My dad was diagnosed with Ms. When I was 3 days old, so I grew up as a caregiver. And so I've done a lot of music with cancer survivors, AIDS patients, people that have gone through losses, be it divorce or death or whatever. And in fact, when I was working with cancer patients, I'll never forget the day that I got a call from the widow of someone who had just passed away.
Eric Gnezda [00:14:54]:
And she said, she goes, I don't know how to ask you this, but Keith wanted to know if he could have your lyrics on his tombstone.
Carol Ventresca [00:15:03]:
Wow.
Eric Gnezda [00:15:04]:
And that just blew me away. And as a friend said, there's your Grammy in heaven. So for me, I don't really feel I can write a song if it doesn't have some element of. Of healing. And that doesn't mean it needs to be a Serious song. Let me give you an example. I. I wrote a song called Swinger of Mine, which was about my first car, Dodge Dart.
Eric Gnezda [00:15:36]:
And it. It. It has to do with reconciling the fact we're getting older and. And looking back, I. I always introduce it by saying, this is a song about my first love. You don't find out until after the Dodge Dart. Yeah, exactly.
Carol Ventresca [00:15:54]:
Not a Mustang, huh?
Eric Gnezda [00:15:55]:
No, not a Mustang. But then there's also, you know, other songs that direct that more. Well, direct it more directly. Like Daddy's Wheels is a song about my dad. I have several songs about children. Cherish the Children is one. The children's hospital used. Blossoms of Hope, which was used for cancer survivors.
Eric Gnezda [00:16:22]:
And then Everyone Wins is a song that I sang for 24, 25 years at the opening ceremony of Special Olympics. And I really, you know, I laugh about this with my co writers and my friends, but I don't know how to write a song that doesn't have something to do with healing. And so that's my particular story. But I think what a lot of writers feel, and I believe this too, that sometimes a song can help you feel that somebody else has lived through the same thing, and that helps you get through the moment. And I think that another difference with my music, in fact all of my work, is that right now, in this time that we live in America, it's like a lot of music and books and movies have to do with escapism, trying to take us out of this mysterious thing we're living in. I don't know how to do that. I have to take a problem and help somebody work through it. And most of the time, I'm helping myself work through it.
Eric Gnezda [00:17:40]:
And that's not always the most popular way to solve a problem, but that's what healing is to me. It's helping somebody work through a problem.
Carol Ventresca [00:17:52]:
Do you think that's why young people flock to music so much? Because it does show them everybody's in this same spot?
Eric Gnezda [00:18:03]:
Absolutely.
Carol Ventresca [00:18:05]:
Interesting.
Brett Johnson [00:18:06]:
Okay.
Carol Ventresca [00:18:07]:
All right.
Brett Johnson [00:18:08]:
So Songs at the center began in 2014 utilizing Worthington's McConnell Arts Center. What brought the creative idea to you? Mixing an intimate onstage venue between the artist and the audience, including it has interviews and performance.
Eric Gnezda [00:18:24]:
Well, that's funny, because this was. Songs at the center was a gift to me from the universe. And. And I never in a million years could have dreamt it up. But the way it happened was that in 2010, the McConnell Arts center opened. I didn't know much about what was going on there, but I Knew it was within walking distance from my house. And then in 2012, Natalie's opened in Worthington. And I walked in there one day, and I talked to Charlie Jackson, the owner, and I said.
Eric Gnezda [00:19:07]:
And we didn't know each other, and I said, you know, I really like what Nashville does with this thing called a songwriter's round, where we get three or maybe four songwriters and they do a show. And I said, I like it for two reasons. Number one, as a performer, I can be part of a show that's 45 minutes or an hour and a half long, but I get to share the stage with other people while still just being myself in a piano. It's not a production. It's my turn. The next writer's turn. The next writer's turn. So from a performer's viewpoint, I really like that because prior to that, I'd been performing for an hour, and I'd have to deliver.
Eric Gnezda [00:19:51]:
I'd have to do the whole thing myself. So it kind of took the pressure off. And what it does for the audience, I told him, was that it provides a variety. If you don't like writer number one, well, writer number two is only three and a half minutes away. So Charlie said, yeah, I'll give that a try. Went on for about eight years. And in that, I discovered the joy. And I wasn't expecting this, but I found the joy of giving other people an opportunity and watching an audience like what they heard, that was brand new for me.
Eric Gnezda [00:20:36]:
And so it just kind of evolved into the idea of doing a television show. I took the idea to the Mac because we needed the McConnell Arts center because we needed a. We needed enough space, and they liked it. And then we got a pilot tape together in 2014, and we got it on the air on Channel 4 for five weeks. And then WOSU heard about it, and they said, hey, if you can give us 13 channels, shows, we'll. We'll put it on the weekend. So that was. I think that was 2015 it started.
Eric Gnezda [00:21:24]:
And three weeks into the show, Stacia Hentz, who's a. A wonderful programmer and just. She's been our champion all along at wosu, she called us in and said, do you mind if I send this to a syndicator? And I said, well, yeah, I mean, you know, what do you mean? She thought it had national potential. So we took it to a meeting that fall, and we got 165 stations saying they wanted to air it. And so it began airing nationally in 2016.
Brett Johnson [00:22:02]:
So when you went from NBC4 to PBS, they wanted more episodes from you and such. What went through your head at that moment? Was it like, heck, yeah, or like.
Eric Gnezda [00:22:13]:
Whoa, you know, there's never been a heck, yeah moment.
Brett Johnson [00:22:16]:
Okay.
Eric Gnezda [00:22:17]:
There's been a funny moment, which I'll get to in a second. But it's. We're under so much pressure, and there are so many things we have to keep track of. I mean, we're editing season 11 right now. We're halfway through the edit process, and I'm seeing stuff I thought, you know, I thought we learned that five years ago, six years ago, and there's still problems.
Brett Johnson [00:22:41]:
Yeah.
Eric Gnezda [00:22:42]:
And, you know, so there was never a moment. Yeah, let's do this. You know, there was a kind of short period of a couple hours when, you know, 165 stations said they wanted to air it. At first it was like, yeah. And then I was like, we got to get to work. You know, we've got to get insurance. We've got to get our legal stuff together. We've got to get our graphics together.
Eric Gnezda [00:23:05]:
All this stuff that left me thinking, wait a minute. I got into this for the music.
Brett Johnson [00:23:10]:
Right now it's now a business.
Eric Gnezda [00:23:13]:
Yeah, it's now a business. But, you know, it's still. It's still in the arts, and it still is a combination of those three things that when I got out of college, I said I wanted to do because I'm writing newsletters and I'm doing music and I'm producing tv.
Carol Ventresca [00:23:33]:
And when you were in college and thinking of those three things, your definition of those three things were probably very limited because you didn't have that experience behind you now. I mean, it literally is. It's sort of like the world is your oyster. There's a lot out there. When you're talking about editing and communicating, there's so much to do.
Eric Gnezda [00:23:58]:
Well, yeah, I don't know that I view it as the world is my oyster. I think the world is my complicated mess. But one thing that has always been part of what I'm doing, and I do not know why, but these opportunities come along, and I have to. I have the opportunity to put my own stamp on it. When I thought about being a television producer in college, I thought, oh, I'd like to produce a show like Saturday Night Live or something like that. It never even occurred to me that I would own a company that produced shows. And I'll tell you that then in, like, 2014 or something like that, I. I was at.
Eric Gnezda [00:24:51]:
This is funny because I was at my financial adviser's office. And the idea of me having or even needing a financial officer is funny, but I was at his, I was, I was at his office and he said, what's going on? I said, well, you know, I'm teaching, you know, making 12 cents an hour and blah, blah, blah. And, And I said, I, I'm. I, I kind of am kicking around this TV show idea. And he sits up, he goes, TV show? He says, what is it? Well, I had the pilot on my computer. And his first question was, who owns this? What do you mean, who owns it? I don't know. I'm going to give it to somebody to produce. We're going to do it.
Eric Gnezda [00:25:34]:
And he said, you have to own this. And in fact, if I had not taken that tactical, it never would have happened. Did I want to own it? Did I want the responsibility? Do I want to own it? Do I want the responsibility? No, but that's the trade off. You have to.
Brett Johnson [00:25:55]:
Well, and ultimately he saw that you, number one, financially, yes, you should. But also you get to control where it's destiny.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:03]:
Exactly.
Brett Johnson [00:26:03]:
If you hand it off to someone else, it's like, that's not what I wanted that to happen necessarily. You know, now you get to control it a little and control in a good way.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:12]:
Right, exactly.
Carol Ventresca [00:26:13]:
He was telling you to put your hand up.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:15]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Brett Johnson [00:26:16]:
Right.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:17]:
Well, and that's not an. I mean, I, you know, I didn't have a business degree, I didn't know anything about business, but I.
Brett Johnson [00:26:24]:
But you know people that can help you.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:26]:
Exactly. And I've learned a lot. And that's where a friend of mine who's a fabulous artist in New York City, because we talk, we're kind of in the same boat. He takes pictures for galleries. He's a great photographer, a great artist himself, but he takes pictures of stuff in galleries. And I showcase other artists. And now and then we have this conversation, you know, what happened to my art? And he said, it's just redefined.
Carol Ventresca [00:26:57]:
I mentioned our connection.
Eric Gnezda [00:26:59]:
Yes.
Carol Ventresca [00:26:59]:
Our buddy Tim, he invited me to the performance with Livingston Taylor. And every time I told folks I was going to listen to Livingston Taylor and they'd give me this blank look, I'd go, james, brother, he may be there, you never know. But I can remember Livingston Taylor as an artist and performer when I was growing up. Some of your guests are pretty well known. John Oates from Holland. Oates, like one of my favorite duos. But others are not as well known, at least not to those of us who are not intimately in the music industry. Choosing your artists.
Carol Ventresca [00:27:36]:
What are you looking at? Do they have to be a published songwriter or only a performer? Not songwriting? And who decides who you're going to bring in? Do you have that final say? So?
Eric Gnezda [00:27:50]:
Well, first of all, you know, we've had on some well known artists, as you said, like John Oates from Hall and Oates, Rodney Crowell, Janice Ian, who was very famous in my day, and a beautiful voice. Oh yeah. And she's a lovely person. So, you know, those artists are kind of, you know, it's obvious they have something to offer. They're singer songwriters. But we also look for people. And I wish that. I wish I could change the world so that they'd see it my way.
Eric Gnezda [00:28:31]:
And I'm sure that every guest, including yourselves, you know, have that same wish. But for me, the most inspiring thing that I can get out of music is to hear one voice and one instrument perform a song that was written by the person singing. And there have been many instances where, like at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville where the songwriter will sing a popular song that, that he or she wrote for somebody else. Their interpretation of it is so much different, but it's beautiful. And one of the examples that I use to illustrate this is there's a gentleman by the name of Mike Reed. And if you are not only a fan of music, but a fan of football, you remember Mike Reed as being the seventh draft pick of the 1970 draft. And he was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals and played defensive tackle. And he did that for five years and then went to Nashville and landed on his feet and he wrote a whole bunch of Ronnie Millsap hits and this kind of stuff.
Eric Gnezda [00:29:45]:
Well, one day I was at a songwriting workshop and the coordinator of the workshop said, I want to play a demo. He says, I love to collect demos. And he said, this is Mike Reed with a piano singing I can't make you love me after he wrote it. And this is what Bonnie Raitt heard and this is the tape she heard when she decided to sing that song. Well, I think hands down, Bonnie Raitt's version of I can't make you love me is one of the great records of the 19th century or the 20th century. But to hear Mike Reed do hits you on a whole different dimension. It's just because the song, it was with no filter coming straight from the heart of the creator. I should say the co creator, he wrote it with Alan Shamblin.
Eric Gnezda [00:30:47]:
But, you know, so when I talk about if the world would see things the way that I do, we're Trying to showcase not so much the singer of the song, because everybody knows who those people are, but the people who write it, what their process, what their sacrifices are, what miracles happened in the. Along the way, you know. And again, to go back to Mike Reed, he. He wrote this song. And when Al, I think Alan Shamblin came over one day and said, oh, I heard this funny story or read this funny story in the news about some woman who. Or some. Some man who shot a car owned by his ex wife. And he told the judge, you can't make a woman love you if she don't.
Eric Gnezda [00:31:36]:
And so for the longest time, they had this bluegrass tune, you know, I can't make you love me if you don't, you know. And one day, Mike Reed was driving his children to school and this melody came in. It was not bluegrass at all, as we know from hearing the song. It came in and developed a song. Those stories to me, are just golden. That's what we try to achieve with our show, is to tell those stories, to show the art behind the art. Now, how do we choose people? You know, one of our. We don't really have anything written down, but we try to make sure that they're making a living being a songwriter, that it's their one sole means of making a living, because that means they're serious about it.
Eric Gnezda [00:32:36]:
They have stories to tell.
Carol Ventresca [00:32:39]:
You know, just by looking at the folks, the pictures of the guests that you've had on your website, you're spanning a lot of decades and generations of songwriters.
Eric Gnezda [00:32:52]:
Right. And we're. We have. We. We want to get to more genres as well. Yeah, but, you know, most of the. The best guests are older because they've lived life and they have stories to tell. There's a lot of great young writers.
Eric Gnezda [00:33:14]:
But you say, you know, hey, you know, what, What. What's. What's the most meaningful thing that's ever happened to you in your career? You know, what. What do you find most meaningful? Well, you know, I like it when someone tells me they like the show. I did a good job. Other people who've got some life experience have much deeper things to talk about.
Carol Ventresca [00:33:34]:
Right?
Brett Johnson [00:33:35]:
Yeah. Well, you've hosted hundreds of artists over the years. Your conversations with them, as well as the creativity of their music, they've inspired audiences. Do you have a particular artist that made an impact on you or the show or the audience that you. You could share with us?
Eric Gnezda [00:33:50]:
Well, they've all made an impact in different ways. I have a story I'd like to tell a little Bit about Janice Ian. Janice, of course, did. She wrote at 17 when I was about that age. And that was a song kind of like Don McLean's Vincent. That was a. It was a very lightly produced song with deep meaning, which would never get on the air now. But at 17 was wonderful.
Eric Gnezda [00:34:23]:
And when she was, I think, 13 or 15 or something, she wrote a song called Society's Child, which was banned by all kinds of radio stations across the country because it was about biracial marriage. But the song was a popular song, and she was interviewed by Leonard Bernstein on his TV show, and it was a really interesting bit. But so, anyway, Janice Ian was one of, you know, one of the people that I. By listening to, you know, she was somebody that I learned to write from. Jackson Brown was another. Jim Croce was one. James Taylor, Joni Mitchell. But in high school, the McConnell, what's now the McConnell Arts center, was originally the one and only school 1 through 12 in Worthington.
Eric Gnezda [00:35:15]:
And it's built. You cannot tear it down. They've tried. And so they used it as what we call the annex to the high school. So when I was in high school, we'd have to walk out the door and walk across this driveway to get to the annex to take all the courses that, A, no one wanted to take, but. Or, B, no one wanted to teach, so health, driver's ed, you know, this kind of stuff. So I'm in there taking a behavioral sciences class, and I'm sitting in the room that is now the theater for the McConnell Arts center, and I'm bored, and I'm writing down song lyrics. Jim Croce song lyrics, you know, James Taylor song lyrics, Janice Ian song lyrics.
Eric Gnezda [00:36:10]:
Well, I don't know. Thirty, 40 years later, Janice Ian comes into that room after it's been renovated, and I'm sitting as close as I am to you guys while she sings at 17. While she sings. Jesse. That was a song that I remember hearing as I drove from a football game that was in walking distance from where we were, and I was a senior in high school, and Jesse's playing and talk about music healing. That was a. You know, I was identifying with that song, and there she was singing this song, and it just blew me away. I've.
Eric Gnezda [00:36:47]:
I've got another funny story. I. My, my. This is about a guest. My Aunt Jesse died in, in 2015, and she left me a 2000 Dodge Neon. Okay.
Carol Ventresca [00:37:02]:
And lucky can you be exactly 15.
Eric Gnezda [00:37:04]:
Years old, the car had about 30,000 miles on it. So she just was a typical car. That was driven to church and home by an older woman. So my, My daughters were learning to drive at the time, so I let them take my bigger car to be safe and all that. So I'm. My car is the Dodge Neon. Well, one day I get in it and I'm thinking, you know, nothing says success like being in your late 50s and driving a Dodge Neon to an adjunct professorship.
Brett Johnson [00:37:48]:
Except a jacket with the elbow pad.
Eric Gnezda [00:37:50]:
Exactly.
Brett Johnson [00:37:50]:
Possibly. Maybe that would be the only addition.
Eric Gnezda [00:37:53]:
That's right. And my phone rings and I pick it up and on the other end says, is this Eric? Yes, it is. This is John Oates.
Carol Ventresca [00:38:03]:
Oh, geez. Yes.
Eric Gnezda [00:38:07]:
And. And so anyway, he'd heard about the show, and he said he was coming through town and wanted to know if he could be a guest. Nuts.
Carol Ventresca [00:38:16]:
Yes.
Brett Johnson [00:38:18]:
Yeah, that is, isn't it? Wow.
Carol Ventresca [00:38:20]:
Goodness gracious.
Eric Gnezda [00:38:21]:
Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [00:38:21]:
You do have an interesting list of contacts on your phone now, don't you?
Brett Johnson [00:38:27]:
I would probably look at the Colorado going, john Oates, come on.
Eric Gnezda [00:38:30]:
Well, it didn't say John Oates, but.
Brett Johnson [00:38:32]:
You know what I mean. Yeah.
Eric Gnezda [00:38:34]:
And then, you know, I had to call him back. It was nuts. It was like the Keith Hernandez episode in Seinfeld, you know, it was nuts. But he's just a wonderful guy, and I've since been in contact with him here. And then when he wrote his book, I got some autographed copies to help a local bookseller sell them. So. Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [00:38:56]:
Wow. Nice. Well, no one would have ever thought of Columbus, Ohio, as a hotbed of the music industry, needless to say. So creating this program is pivotal. The choice of being here, based here, and getting people to come in, getting guests to come in. You've got to have a whole series of challenges. Having songs at the center located here in Columbus. What's the catalyst? How has it strengthened our local music scene? Has it increased opportunities for young people here in central Ohio to be in music?
Eric Gnezda [00:39:39]:
Well, let me start off by telling you something that Tom Douglas said to me. Tom Douglas wrote a bunch of hits. One of them was the house that built me for Miranda Lambert. It was the academy of country music song of the decade, and just a wonderful song. But we were at dinner one time and he said, a music show in Columbus, Ohio. It's so wrong. It's perfect.
Brett Johnson [00:40:11]:
Wow.
Carol Ventresca [00:40:14]:
Good for him. He was smart guy, wasn't he?
Eric Gnezda [00:40:17]:
Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [00:40:18]:
Oh, my gosh.
Eric Gnezda [00:40:20]:
You know, I don't know. I, I.
Brett Johnson [00:40:26]:
But sometimes you think, why not, though? Well, see, why not?
Eric Gnezda [00:40:29]:
That's, that's the thing. And this goes back to what I was talking about that, you know, for whatever reason, I'm always thrown into these situations where I have to create my own thing. It's not that I don't want to. I'm happy to join somebody else's idea, but it's just never been in front of me to do that. So I think often about, you know, maybe it doesn't really matter what. Where we are, because we certainly have enough people coming through town here. And of course, we fly people in and put them up, and our budget allows us to do that, but it's not like we're in North Dakota, which might really be interesting.
Carol Ventresca [00:41:19]:
Timbuktu.
Eric Gnezda [00:41:20]:
Exactly. But, yeah, I mean, I'm here, and I've made choices for various reasons to stay here, and it's in Columbus, Ohio.
Carol Ventresca [00:41:34]:
Wonderful. We're glad.
Eric Gnezda [00:41:36]:
Thank you.
Brett Johnson [00:41:37]:
So did your travels away from Ohio provide any perspective on what you could accomplish here at home, given your connections in the music industry? I mean, are the challenges of working in this industry the same regardless of where you live?
Eric Gnezda [00:41:50]:
Well, we were talking about the differences that the Internet and technology is made, and that's one thing. And this is just recent, but it matters a whole lot less where you are, because it used to be that these A and R people from record companies would have to go visit people and they'd have to watch them and, you know, and now they just get on the Internet or hear about TikTok videos that have, you know, shaking the world. And that's how they do a lot of their recruiting for the record companies. But for me, the traveling. I've always been on the road ever since I was in my. In my 20s, because I was a. While I was a songwriter. I was also a speaker.
Eric Gnezda [00:42:46]:
But it was funny because I do music in my presentations. And so the music industry was thinking, well, he's not really one of us. And the speaking industry was thinking, well, he's not really one of us. But I got to see a lot and learned a lot about audiences and people. And I think that, as I alluded to before, the biggest influence for me was when I started going back to Nashville and really learning from people. I talked to a music publisher who said. He said the Bluebird Cafe is my church. He says, that's where I go and I listen and I learn stuff.
Eric Gnezda [00:43:35]:
And that's true. And see, that's the thing. That's. That's what, to me, separates people. Who's. Who really, really want to be a songwriter, who love the craft, and those people who don't aren't really committed to it, who are just. They're play acting, and I have no interest in people that are play acting. I want to see people who learn something every time they write a song, every time they listen to.
Eric Gnezda [00:44:09]:
I mean, I can sit. If the name of this podcast were let's Talk Songwriting, I could sit here for six hours giving examples and talking about everything about songwriting. I just absolutely love to talk about songwriting. And so Nashville is a place where the core of people, that's their life. I have my differences with Nashville, but I do recognize that there is value there, and there are people there who love it. And I just. I learn so much every time I go down there.
Carol Ventresca [00:44:52]:
So you've been doing the program Songs at the center for over 10 years.
Eric Gnezda [00:44:58]:
Yeah.
Carol Ventresca [00:44:59]:
Music, needless to say, has made a lot of changes over the past decade. How do you see. What do you see in those changes? And are the challenges and issues that you are dealing with at Songs of the center different now than they were when you started? And is that because of the changes in music such as streaming and all the other stuff that goes with changes in the Internet?
Eric Gnezda [00:45:28]:
Yeah, I think the biggest, biggest change is that. And this alludes to something you were saying, was that it used to be a small number of people who were the gatekeepers, and now that's the negative part of it. You had to know somebody. You had to meet their approval to get through the gate. Now the gates are wide open. The bad news about that is that anybody who's ever had a song idea, who ever plucked a guitar, can put a song together. And now with AI, you don't even have to be able to do anything but just sing a tune. And you can say, I want this to be a country song or a bluegrass song or a pop song or a contemporary Christian.
Eric Gnezda [00:46:19]:
And AI will turn out a demo that is fully orchestrated. And all this, it's nuts. And. And, you know, songwriters all over the world. It used to be, you know, you have to have a budget for demos. Well, now you don't. You plug it into your computer and. And you got a workable demo.
Eric Gnezda [00:46:40]:
That's one of the changes. So it, it, it. There are so, so, so many songwriters out there who, frankly, you know, need a little bit of education that it can be harder to wade through that. And another challenge in the show is that, you know, frankly, you know, I'm getting older, and it's the old generational thing. I thank goodness I have daughters who have good taste in music. I think, in fact, one of my Daughters. Caroline worked for us last year, and she was very, very helpful in lining up acts. But, you know, this is true of anybody who's in any kind of business.
Eric Gnezda [00:47:30]:
You have to always be open. You have to be able to change course at a moment's notice. You have to be open to change. And that's, you know, every year we go into that and, you know, I mean, we can't just put on the people that I like. We have to put on people who the audience is going to like.
Carol Ventresca [00:47:55]:
Isn't that. And I think music demonstrates that almost more than anything. I can remember working with a group of a couple of young women who, when rap first started, and they were, you know, absolutely over the moon with rap. And at that point in time, it was mostly just talking, not so much music. And I'm like, but it's not music if it doesn't have a melody. And it took a long time to get past that notion and that thinking of that change was a good thing.
Eric Gnezda [00:48:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, there have been, you know, over the last 30 years, there have been a lot of things in music that have expanded its. Its definition.
Carol Ventresca [00:48:39]:
Right, Right.
Brett Johnson [00:48:40]:
Yeah. We want to remind the listener that you can find this show songs at the center on Saturday nights here locally in Columbus, Ohio. 11 o' clock, WOSU channel. If you're outside of the area, check your local PBS website. So, Eric, can you give us any hints on changes on the program for the upcoming season, such as maybe format, direction of the show? We kind of hinted on that. How things evolve. Any hints on upcoming guest artists?
Eric Gnezda [00:49:10]:
Well, first of all, I want to say none of this would be happening if it were not for our sponsors, the James and Jobs Ohio, who've both been with us for many, many years, and we're extremely grateful to them. Our show coming up, we have Ruthie Foster, who's a fabulous blues artist. She just won her first Grammy this past year. She's based out of Austin, Texas, and she just did a great job for us. And another person that you mentioned earlier was Livingston Taylor. He's gonna be on our show. And then we have a whole lot of artists, but two of them I'm really excited about. One of them is Gordy Sampson, and he wrote Jesus Take the Wheel for Carrie Underwood.
Eric Gnezda [00:49:58]:
And he's actually from Nova Scotia. He moved to Nashville, I don't know, 15, 20 years ago. And he was a recording artist up there and came to Nashville and made his living as a songwriter. But he sings Jesus Take the Wheel and again, it doesn't sound it's the same song and the same melody, but he brings his own interpretation to it. And the other writer is Tia Sillers. She wrote I Hope youe Dance for Leanne Womack, which won a Grammy. And she also wrote Blue on Black, which was released twice. It was a rock and roll song that was released twice.
Eric Gnezda [00:50:39]:
And so those are some of the artists we're really looking forward to having.
Brett Johnson [00:50:45]:
Yeah, I would love to hear the Blue on Black interpretation. That's interesting.
Eric Gnezda [00:50:48]:
Yeah. Well, she'll be singing that on. She sings it.
Brett Johnson [00:50:52]:
Her view of how she revered. In her head. Yeah. Wow. Wow.
Carol Ventresca [00:50:57]:
So, Eric, we always start winding down here, but one of the things that I wanted to bring up in our conversation is something that Brett and I talk with folks a lot, and that is how over time, we older adults go through transitions in our career and often have something called an encore career, sort of pulling all those skills together and doing something that could also be good for the. It's kind of a transitional opportunity, which it seems like Songs of the center has been for you. We've talked about the challenges, but tell us about the discoveries you've made because of having this show. How has this program opened new and positive opportunities for you? And also tell us about the book you have coming out.
Eric Gnezda [00:51:46]:
Well, let me start with the book.
Carol Ventresca [00:51:49]:
That was a long question. Is that.
Eric Gnezda [00:51:51]:
It was. I'll start with the book. It'll give me time to think of an answer for that other question. But, yeah, the book's kind of funny. When I was. Let's see, it was about 2003, my speaking career changed because right after 9, 11 companies, therefore, clients of mine, had a change in direction. You couldn't just be an inspiring speaker. You had to have content.
Eric Gnezda [00:52:22]:
And I didn't have much content. I mean, I had what I think was important life content, but I didn't have five secrets on how to retire at 32 or something, you know, So I had to find something else to do because my speaking career kind of. It didn't dry up, but it just wasn't as. As fluent as it had been fluid as it had been. So I. I looked and I started looking at all kinds of other professions and it. Which I don't need to go into, but there were multiple professions I was looking into, and one of them was writing. And so I took a writing course at Ohio State, and, boy, you know, I was 40.
Eric Gnezda [00:53:10]:
I don't know about. I was in my early 40s and walking into a class at Ohio State in which everyone was the Age of. You know, I could have had kids that age. It was really strange.
Carol Ventresca [00:53:20]:
And they look like they are 12, right?
Eric Gnezda [00:53:22]:
Exactly. But I took a course in this thing called creative nonfiction, which was taught by a gentleman who ended up being a very, very close friend of mine. His name's Steve Koussasto, and he's a blind author and wrote a book called Planet of the Blind. But this creative nonfiction was something that Truman Capote kind of invented. He's one of the people given credit for doing this, where he'd take a story, whether it was his own or his story. What was the name of it? In Cold Blood. His story. In Cold Blood.
Eric Gnezda [00:54:03]:
And he'd create things that happened. They were true. They might not have been literal, but they were true. You know what I'm saying? And so Steve wrote a whole memoir with this type of approach, Creative nonfiction. So I, in 2003, wrote the first chapter of what turned into a memoir. And what's funny is that that chapter turned out to be the final chapter of the full memoir and the full memoirs. In that time, I went to graduate school. I got my mfa, and, you know, I.
Eric Gnezda [00:54:42]:
The show developed. I was done with one version of the story before I even started the TV show. Over the last 10 years, I've had more to add to the story, so. And I just write it when I have time. So it's a life story that basically took me my lifetime to write. But.
Brett Johnson [00:55:03]:
So you only have one book in you, then?
Eric Gnezda [00:55:04]:
Exactly, exactly. So I wrote that, and the title is still being developed, but the book is done. And I signed a publishing deal with a traditional publisher in March. So we're going to start editing it this month. So I don't know when it's coming out, but probably late fall or the winter. But thank you for allowing me to talk about that, because that writing the memoir leads me to the other part of your question. What have I learned from all this? And there have been things that I've learned that have been very positive, and some of the things that I've learned have been very negative. And let me just start with some of those, and we'll end on a positive note.
Eric Gnezda [00:55:59]:
The. By working with, you know, we're. Everybody's dependent on everybody else in something. You know, they say, no man's an island, but you have to have a team. You have to invite artists, you have to look for funders and all this. I'm amazed at how my mom used to say when my dad was sick, she'd say, I'm always Amazed at how many friends don't come around to see your father. But she was just as amazed by the people that you'd never guess in a million years would show up. And they showed up to help.
Eric Gnezda [00:56:48]:
That's kind of the way it's been with the show. I'm amazed at the people that I assumed would be behind it and pushing for us and helping us for whatever reason, for a variety of reasons, but the people. I'm also amazed at the people I could not have guessed in a million years would be behind us who are. So that's one thing I've learned. On the other hand, the positive things is that, you know, when it comes to, to being an artist, I don't think that it's a profession you choose, it chooses you. And you know, we found that out from, you know, all of the artists. And I have to say I've not disliked any, anybody we've ever had on the show. They, they've, they've come on, they've, they've been gracious, they've done, they've done the job.
Eric Gnezda [00:57:48]:
But I'm just always renewed by their enthusiasm, by their backgrounds, by how they got to being songwriters. And many times it's a traumatic event that got him there. A lot of them grew up lonely, which gives me more motivation to do the show because I'm thinking, what if there's a 13 year old kid in Des Moines who's feeling lost and he sees some other songwriter on our show talk about how he was lost or she was lost and he, they picked up a guitar. Well, maybe that will have some influence on that kid. Maybe there is a disabled veteran who cannot get out to see a show, who sees our show. It helps them, you know, so it's been, it's been largely a positive thing. And I, I will also say that like anything else in life, I'm not going to know. I may never know the effect that the show has had on other people, but the effects it had on me, I may not know until 10 years from now, 15 years from now.
Eric Gnezda [00:59:10]:
That's just the way life is, unfortunately.
Carol Ventresca [00:59:13]:
Or fortunately.
Eric Gnezda [00:59:14]:
Or fortunately. Yeah, that's true.
Brett Johnson [00:59:15]:
Fortunately. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You know, just a reminder that, you know, the show's on Saturday evenings, 11 o' clock. It's also on, on the free PBS app as well as other streaming platforms. We're very fortunate to have a wonderful public broadcasting collective here in our region through PBS, NPR and WOSU. We hope that you support public TV and radio @ the national and local levels and Please let your elected officials know you support the trusted journalism, lifelong learning cultural programming and meaningful local storytelling you and your family receive from public Media.
Carol Ventresca [00:59:51]:
Good job. We're going to hire you to do those things.
Brett Johnson [00:59:56]:
Adding a cup of coffee.
Carol Ventresca [00:59:57]:
He's going to cut that out. You know, I don't think we've. We've not really done a sponsorship, but I was. I really thought, given today's world, we needed to say that.
Brett Johnson [01:00:08]:
So, you know, I agree because when I went to Miami University, I mean, my four years there, I worked at the post public radio station. I learned a ton from that. And at that time, it was a mixture of big band and the public radio news piece to it. And what I learned from those people that worked there, they were generations ahead of me. But just learning radio at that time, priceless. I miss all those people to this day and think about them every day. You can't get that anywhere else, you know, you really can.
Carol Ventresca [01:00:44]:
Eric, we always ask our guests for their last words of wisdom. And what I would like to ask is your suggestions, particularly for our young songwriters and musicians. And they've just. They're discovering songs at the center. They have an interest in a music career. And as you said, songs at the center could have been a pivotal moment for them. What are the words of wisdom you have for those folks?
Eric Gnezda [01:01:15]:
Well, I think that, strangely enough, the most important skill you can develop as a songwriter is to listen, listen, listen, listen to songs, to advice. You know, not everything everyone's going to say is going to matter. But take it all in and then you can sift through what matters. Listen, listen, listen. The other advice I have is that nothing we create can ever be viewed as sacred. I was in Tacoma, Washington, at Dale Chihuly's studio. And he's got bleachers in there for people to sit and watch him work and his team. And I'm sitting up there and he happened to be present that day, and his team is taking one pot and giving a glass pot to somebody else.
Eric Gnezda [01:02:16]:
And they're all this kind of stuff. And down at the end is the kiln. And Chihuly's sitting there watching all this. And this guy takes this thing out of the kiln, a treddy, and he turns around and crash drops it. So my eyes went to Chihuly immediately. I wanted to see what he was going to do. He didn't even move, which told me two things. Number one, he's probably seen this happen before.
Eric Gnezda [01:02:42]:
But the second thing is that there's a recognition that that's part of the process. I cannot tell you how many times I've written something, be it part of my book, be it a song that I just take apart. It's not done until it's done. Some of them have taken me 30 years to write and I just think that that's so important to recognize. So if you listen to what other people are doing and learn from them and then realize that you know every, your song can be destroyed and you pick out the parts of it that are still good and then you bring it back into new life. That that's important.
Brett Johnson [01:03:30]:
Well, many thanks to our guest Eric Nesda, creator and host of Songs at the center, for joining us today. Listeners, thank you for joining us as well. You're going to find the contact information and resources we discussed in the podcast and are show notes and on our [email protected] and we are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes.